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The deadline for businesses to transition to EMV chip and PIN technology was October 1, 2015. It has been over a year and many merchants and consumers still have questions. To help understand this confusing technology and what it all means, here are ten facts to help you with EMV requirements and your responsibilities.

What is EMV? – 10 Facts to Help You as a Merchant

EMV cards contain an embedded chip in addition to mag-stripe which is used to transmit data.

EMV chip creates a unique token for every transaction, which can only be used once, making it more secure and difficult to counterfeit.

Most commonly used method of processing a card-present chip and PIN transaction is consumer inserts the card into a terminal which remains in the system until processing completed. Many cards will process without the PIN number being entered.

Universal global acceptance is a large driving force of chip and PIN, particularly for international travelers. Chip and PIN has been used internationally overseas since 1990s. U.S. is laggard in adoption of it.

Major card brands, Master Card, Visa, Discover and AMX are pushing chip and PIN technology. Beginning in October 2015, if a fraudulent transaction occurs, the party (business) responsible for processing a non-EMV transaction will be held 100% liable for that transaction.

Card issuing banks are responsible for ensuring that cardholders have been sent a chip-enabled card; failure to do so will result in card issuer being held liable.

To comply with new chip and PIN standard, merchants must have EMV-ready terminals that are equipped to accept and process chip cards. This includes automated point of sale systems, aka: POS systems.

Many older, commonly used POS systems do not have internal capability to process EMV chip cards. Limited solutions are now available to assist POS systems processing of EMV cards. Solutions are still limited due to newness of EMV technology and integrations with older POS systems are being developed slowly.

If your business has not yet adopted chip and PIN technology, October 1, 2015 was the deadline. The liability shift will affect your profits now. Contact us for assistance.

We have various EMV-ready solutions for your business which comply with EMV mandates and requirements. Failure to do so may cost your business thousands to liability associated with non-EMV fraudulent charge backs.